Please contact us re wheelchair access (it’s not great but is being worked on)

FPA was started in 2011. We've gone through a lot – and accomplished a lot – since then. We have our eyes on the prize, and with our many allies we intend to make concrete gains this year. We are welcoming new members, and people who want to work with us in other ways.

More than any other time in the past few years, fuel poverty and energy policy are in the headlines.

Will
Theresa May really bring the bills down as she’s promising? What
pressure are she and the companies under – and how can we increase it?

Would
her plans dent the increase in deaths from fuel poverty due to
government policy – on everything from benefits sanctions to housing?

How can we support the fight against fracking?

How can we expose the cost of Hinkley C as opposed to solar, wind and tidal power?

Why
are people in arrears being forced onto Prepayment Meters and then
forced to pay more than their better off neighbours – even after the
proposed “cap”?

Why doesn’t London yet have a public energy company as Nottingham and Bristol do?

District
Heating – How can we make sure that those who run it are held to
account so that it's win-win for the climate and communities and not a
PFI disaster?

What is Fuel Poverty Action doing about all this? What is our role, in a landscape of charities and lobbying organisations?How are grassroots communities organising for our energy rights?What is being done in other countries?How can we speak out and defend ourselves and our environment?

Come along and raise your own issues, find out what’s happening, and consider how you might be part of it.

7 pm Business and elections7.15 Reports, activities, discussion8.30 Social

Council news: I'm asking for best practice in equality

Following positive answers from the Mayor of London
(and improvements on the way in the GLA group of organisations), I've
asked Camden Council to change how it deals with gender and diversity in
its data and recruitment procedures.

I
have written to Camden's Cabinet Member for Equality & Employment,
Larraine Revah, to urge Camden to change official forms and recruitment
processes. I've asked for better practices including:

Giving
people the option not to reveal their gender when filling in forms to
access services, include a choice of gender-neutral titles

Name-blind shortlisting processes when recruiting staff

Some
of the other councillors have backed me on twitter already, so I'm
hoping for a positive answer soon, to match the good news from City
Hall!

Save Tavistock Place bike lanes

The Council began a 12 month trial of better bike lanes in December last year and it has been hugely successful.

Doubling
the space for people on bikes in Tavistock Place and Torrington Place
has led to a 30% average increase in cycling at peak times, and air
pollution has reduced in the area, dropping by up to 21%.

The Council is now consulting on whether to make the change permanent,
while also makeing the street better for walking too, with wider
pavements.

It takes just two minutes to do - simply choose YES for Q6 “Would you like the current street layout… to become permanent?” and NO for Q7 “Would you like the street to return to its pre-trial layout…?”.

Cut Council Tax for low income residents

Camden Council also considering cutting council tax back to zero for the borough's poorest people.

Since
2013, the council has removed the previous 100% exemption for people
receiving benefits - including disabled people and families with low
incomes. It now charges everyone at least 8.5% of the full rate,
something it's very hard to pay when you have no way of making the extra
money required.

I've argued for several years that this isn't fair, and the council has
agreed to consult on the option of going back to 100% relief. This
consultation is even more simple to complete. Just choose 'option 2' in the online survey here:

Wed 26 Oct, 1pm-5pm Disability Action Theatre and the Economy by Disability Action in Islington. Would you like toHave your say about the economy and how it impacts you and other disabled people?Participate in a creative workshop to generate ideas and strategies for what the future should look like?Watch a participatory theatre performance created by disabled people to generate discussion and action towards economic justice?We believe that everybody should be able to have their say about the UK's economy
Location: Voluntary Action Islington, 200A Pentonville Road,LondonN1 9JP View MapFurther details: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/disability-action-theatre-and-the-economy-registration-28746820514Wed 26 Oct, 2.30-4.30pmArt As Action Workshop by You
Should See The Other Guy – female politically engaged theatre group. A
workshop on storytelling & creating protest songs as done in Land of
the Three Towers. Come celebrate your home, tell
your struggle, and together we'll make a protest song about it. At
Silchester Estate in Kensington, Maxilla Centre, 4 Maxilla Walk, W10 6NQ
(tube: Ladbroke Grove)
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/land-of-the-three-towers-silchester-estate-kensington-maxilla-centre-tickets-27464222228

Fri 28 Oct, 2-7.45pmNo One Turned Away: Housing Is A Human Right Crisis are calling
on MPs to change the law so that no one is turned away when they
approach their local authority for help & homelessness is a priority
for single people. Streetskitchen.co.uk will be taking
their kitchen to Parliament that day & campaign for #NoMoreDeathsOnOurStreets At Parliament Square, Westminster SW1A (tube: Westminster) https://www.facebook.com/events/708569762615517/

Sat 29 Oct, 12-4pmUFFC Annual Remembrance Procession 2016 by United Families & Friends Campaign (UFFC).
Since 1999, the UFFC holds its annual remembrance
procession from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street to remember loved
ones who died in custody. A disproportionate number of them were Black
& Minority Ethnic
people dying in police custody.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1334523326576403/#

Thursday, 13 October 2016

Beyond the current Ministry of Justice/Reform UK 'think tank' consultation on their 'future is digital' vision for the bald mechanics of justice admin

"May I suggest a social theology .... rooted in the experience of the poorest UK citizens."

— Revd Paul Nicolson, founder of Taxpayers Against Poverty (1)

".... the periscope
allows the commander of the submarine only limited vision. The periscope
will show you only what you look at; if you don't look at something,
you won't see it. And the same is true of questions: one only gets what
one asks for. If you don't ask for something, you won't get it."

I am deeply concerned
at the setting of the agenda and slanting of questions in the
Ministry of Justice consultation Transforming
Our Justice System that was launched on 15 September and is
deadlined for Thursday 27 October.(4) I believe that the inception of the consultation owes more to the
impact of bad laws on enforcement logistics while the crimes of
government against poor people are treated as 'business as usual' or rather, completely overlooked.

Justice areas looked at
in the consultation are: Criminal; Civil; Family and Tribunals. While
I shall not address the matter of the proposals for Criminal, Civil,
and Family divisions of the courts and tribunals system specifically,
what I call the crimes of government against poor people appear to
impact upon those sections, in my view.

Bad laws lead to the
non-cooperation of fair minded adjudicators and create greater
backlogs

More
than 50 magistrates are understood to have resigned from the bench in
recent weeks amid an extraordinary judicial revolt against new court
charges which critics claim encourage innocent people to plead
guilty.

Benefit
reductions, stresses of poverty and badly financed public services including IAG
[information, advice and guidance] meltdown drive more people into
civil debt

After UK central government reduced the amount available to local councils for the Council Tax Reduction Scheme, most councils responded as Brent Council did by charging people too poor to pay any tax with an element of council tax, leading to huge arrears, as reported in the Brent & Kilburn Times in 2014:

Brent Council have come under-fire for issuing court summons over
council tax arrears which has left 2,000 vulnerable residents footing a
hefty bill of more than £250,000... (7)

More recently, finding it uneconomical to enforce the unenforceable, Camden Council has belatedly launched a consultation offering 100% Council Tax Reduction for those too poor to pay Council Tax as its preferred option.(8)(9)

Alongside 'making poor people pay' being the reality of Conservative Government 'making work pay' welfare reform or anihilation policy, there has been the closure of Citizens Advice Bureau outlets from the time of the 2010 Con-Dem coalition government.(10) As Kate Belgrave has reported, "It can be really hard to get welfare advice."(11) None the less, regarding what people seek advice about, Citizens Advice reported in July 2016 that the number of people seeking advice about Council Tax arrears had risen by over a third in three years and

Benefit cuts and 'transforming benefit tribunals'

Finally, I come the matter of proposed 'transformation of benefit tribunals' as outlined in Panel composition in tribunals. This has been correctly flagged up by Benefits and Work Publishing (BWP) as addressing the wrong issues and making it far more likely that injustices will be done to poor people. "Shaming appeal success rates" are an embarrassment to government, BWP argued in a news item Virtual abolition of PIP, DLA and ESA tribunals as we know them.(14) Of course, those 'shaming appeal success rates' indicate that injustices have been committed that tribunals need to redress. As a 'Benefits appeal panel member' put it:

Frances Ryan in a Guardian article, Will disability benefits appeals become less fair? on the MoJ's proposals regarding tribunal panels reports on the proposal that decisions should be made more 'on the papers' to reduce the number of appeals panels:(16)

Steve Donnison, co-founder of Benefits and Work,(18)
a not-for-profit benefits advice resource, explains: “Appeal panels
have to make a decision about the honesty and credibility of an
appellant. It’s far easier for them to make this judgment if the
claimant is in front of them answering their questions.” This disadvantage is exacerbated by the fact, which advocates stress,
that many claimants appealing a decision aren’t actually aware of the
criteria for being eligible for benefits. “And when the appeal is by
paper, the tribunal has no way of filling in the gaps in the evidence,”
Donnison adds. “So they can’t make an award.”

Government crimes against poor disabled benefit claimants as "business as usual"

I commend my reader to further study of the Frances Ryan article should they wish.(Reference#: 12 It's already been published there.) Here, though, I shall refer to other stresses and strains upon poor benefit claimants that further a plot designed to privatise the welfare state. (That plot and its key instigators have been well documented by former health care worker Mo Stewart in her book Cash — Not Care, as it addresses the "corporate demolition of the welfare state."(19))

A major stressor on disability benefit claimants has become the frequency of testing claimants. As a survivor of that system myself, I can honestly say that being called to re-assessment six months after completion of the previous testing regime made me ill in addition to my having a disability from birth. And I have been by no means the only person to experience such trauma. That retesting amounts to a form of psychological and financial torture. On the one hand there is the sense of being accused of making a fraudulent claim, and on the other there is the risk of having one's benefits reduced considerably while being subjected to worse 'conditionality' as a result.

Yet a further mechanism by which the DWP can be aiming to make tribunal success less likely is to discourage appealing. It is much harder to get into the ESA (Support Group) than the ESA (Work Related Activity Group). Thus if a person has been awarded 0 eligibility points at their 'Work Capability Assessment' inferring that they are 'fit for work', they might be inclined to appeal, however stressful appealing might be. But if appealing is very stressful and the prospective appelant cannot bear the prospect of going through the appeals process after the trauma of delays caused by Mandatory Reconsideration, they might think, "What's the use? The best I could get would be Work Related Activity Group status, which now comes with a £30 per week reduction from the old rate for new claimants."(20)

The DWP says that the £30 a week reduction in ESA (WRAG) rate for new claimants is to 'incentivise' the claimant to find work. That is rubbish. Disabled people are disadvantaged by physical, economic and social barriers and that cut can make a stressful situation even more stressful. The Jobseekers Allowance rate that that £30 a week cut amounts to is also bad for provision of health, bringing worries of how the person will make it to the end of the week or month while also being obligated to pay an element of Council Tax.

A few years ago though, I was privy to a father's evidence to an ESA review. The father's son had a severe learning disability and was awarded 0 eligibility points out of the threshold of 15. The tribunal panel raised that number of points to 48 and placed the appelant in the ESA (Support Group)!

There is also the threat of benefit sanctions that comes with ESA (WRAG) status. One of the fundamental issues regarding the issuing of benefit sanctions is that the decision maker never sees the target of the sanction as a person; the decision is made 'on paper' rather than habeus corpus. Glasgow University Law Professor rightyly regards this as Britain's secret penal system.

My closing questions

If torture is contrary to international law, what about the psychologic tortures inflicted by the DWP in the name of 'welfare reform' and the tortures imposed by local councils in the way they force people to pay unpayable Council Tax?

Should not the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) repeal the unjust laws that have led magistrates to resign in their droves?

Should not the MoJ compel the DWP to adopt rule 43 from benefit suicides courts that Iain Duncan Smith treated with contempt?(21)

Is not the agenda for the MoJ consultation too much driven by digital companies and privatisation? Compare the content of these reviews with the keyword search 'magistrates' on the website of 'think tank' ReformUK. http://www.reform.uk/?s=magistrates

Is not it high time that disabled people ourselves were consulted in the drafting of government consultations?

Monday, 10 October 2016

".... people whose incomes are stopped by a benefit sanction are sometimes
overcome by feelings of humiliation or shame, fear or distrust,
insecurity or loneliness; or by a sense of being trapped and powerless
under the abuses of power by the State. ...."

Saturday, 8 October 2016

We have posted BLOG 1 on TAP website (1) this morning and we are advertising it Facebook and Twitter. Here is the email for Blog 1

​, which has been sent to our email lists​

.

​ ​

As you know the next eight

​blogs ​

will be posted on the TAP website and emailed every Friday until the 2nd December.

​You are all invited to the free Affordable Housing Seminar TAP is running with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty on the 16th November. I am sure we will all gain much powerful ammunition for the campaigns for affordable housing we all support from the speakers - registration is here.(2)

Stephen Hill has kicked off with a powerful piece about the short comings of his own profession of chartered surveyors. ​

Commenting on Blog Contents

Comments are approved unless abusive, obscene, completely off the subject, disguised advertising or libellous. Publication of a comment does not imply that the blog administrator or KUWG agree with it.

Please note if I respond to comments it is in my Google log in — never 'Anonymous'

Commenters cause less confusion when they use their own names or pen names. A host of 'Anons' can give very mixed messages. Even if you use the technically easier 'Anonymous' button to make a comment you can still put your name at the end.

Benefits sanctioned? Take mass action!

An average of 1700 benefit clamants are sanctioned per year in each London parliamentary constituency. One of them might be writing parliamentary candidates in your polling constituency right now. How about more people who are sanctioned writing candidates in your parliamentary constituency and asking relevant questions at 'hustings' debates in your area?

Meeting structure

Helping you feel at home: We meet weekly in the Small Hall at KingsgateCC and start gathering from 3pm, attempting to start the meetings at about 3:15pm and definitely before 3:30pm.

Bring and share refreshments are included. We are not like the 'No eating or drinking on the premises' jobcentre.

The formal meetings start with firstname and what benefit we are on or a one-liner about what brings us to KUWG. (Pensioners and other allies welcome.)

We then ask for casework from those present, arrange who will help with what case, and go onto discussing campaigning leafleting and such outreach activities. We also arrange who will do the chairing or facilitating and note-taking for the following week. Rotating these roles helps minimise the risk of being dominated by one person and helps us build our skills as we share the workload.

Meetings actually finish at about 5:20pm to allow for putting tables and chairs back and leaving the kitchen facilities ready for the next group.